1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a maintenance method for a liquid ejecting apparatus.
2. Related Art
From the past, an ink jet recording apparatus has an ink jet recording head for discharging ink to a recording paper or the like. Since the ink jet recording head discharges ink to the recording paper or the like via nozzles, the ink thickens in the vicinity of the nozzles, bubbles are incorporated inside the nozzles, and there is a concern that discharging of the ink may not be effectively performed.
As a result, the ink jet recording apparatus is provided with a head cleaning device for preventing these phenomena.
The head cleaning device has a capping unit positioned to cover the nozzle and a pump for creating negative pressure inside the capping unit, and is configured to perform cleaning and maintenance by sucking the ink in the vicinity of the nozzles and the like using the pump.
As this type of pump, a tube pump is used which has a relatively simple configuration and is easily miniaturized. As such, in JP-A-2006-258051, a tube pump is disclosed where excessive suction, reverse flow and the like of a liquid such as ink do not occur.
However, in the techniques in the related art described above, there is the following problem.
On the downstream side of the pump (ink discharging side), if clogging occurs due to solidified ink or the like, the ink output gets backed up and pressure increases. In this case, there is a concern that the connection portion of the pump and the tube or the like will be disconnected and ink will leak out, and development of a method which efficiently detects clogging is desired.